


like your life depends on it

by suganii (feints)



Category: Haikyuu!!, The Maze Runner (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Maze Runner Fusion, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hirugami Sachirou & Hoshiumi Kourai (mentioned), Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mentions of canon-typical violence, No Knowledge of the Maze Runner Required
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27764920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feints/pseuds/suganii
Summary: Three days ago, there used to be eight of them in number. Whether he wants to or not, things are going to change. Nozawa has to decide where he stands.
Relationships: Nozawa Izuru & Kamomedai Volleyball Club
Kudos: 7
Collections: HQ Minor Teams Fanweek 2020





	like your life depends on it

**Author's Note:**

> This was a more experimental piece, as I haven't dealt with fics that haven't been all fluff for a while. It was nice to dip my toes into something a little more angsty for once. Be warned: there is **implied character death** in the story, and please mind the tags!
> 
> For Day 5 of HQ Minor Teams Week: Kamomedai | Post-Apocalyptic AU.

The maze which towered over the rest of the small glade during the day, seemed only doubly imposing at night. Each time the doors closed with a teeth-grinding screech, each second seeming to last a lifetime, Nozawa couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief. It meant they were safe. Whatever was out there, they were far away from its clutches.

They’d learned that lesson the hard way. So far, Nozawa was only one of seven other boys in the glade. Three days ago, that number had been eight. Nozawa knew that in the morning, boys would run into that treacherous maze, trying to find their way out once again, but for now they could relax. There was nothing they could do once the doors were closed.

He glanced at Suwa. The other boy was prodding at the small campfire they’d built with a stick, his eyes unfocused, distant, like his mind was far away. Or like he was remembering something.

“Earth to Suwa,” Nozawa said, nudging his friend gently. He’d been doing that a lot since they lost Hoshiumi. “What're you thinking about?”

Suwa turned big, thoughtful eyes on him slowly. The shape of them was sorrowful, pulling at the corners, and it immediately put Nozawa on his guard. He opened his mouth to speak, but Suwa beat him to it.

“The other night,” he said hoarsely, voice pitched low. Nozawa had to inch forward to hear him as he said, “I think we might’ve made a mistake.”

Nozawa was already giving a vehement shake of the head before Suwa finished speaking. “We did everything we could,” he insisted, careful not to raise his own voice.

They had. They’d done everything to bring Hoshiumi home, but what else were they supposed to do once the boy had turned on _them_?

Surely Suwa knew that. Still, Nozawa should’ve known Suwa couldn’t take it lying down, and what Suwa ended up telling him was even worse than Nozawa had imagined.

“Hirugami came up to me just now, right after the maze closed. He and Gao are going to try to find him in the morning.”

“They’re not going to find him,” Nozawa protested.

“No. But they’re not going to come back until they do.”

Nozawa shot to his feet. “I’ll talk them out of it,” he said. He had to. They had just lost one of their own, there was no way he was going to lose anyone else.

“Nozawa,” Suwa called, a hand grabbing Nozawa’s arm. Before he could shake it off, he heard Hirugami’s voice behind him, pleasing and light.

“Who are you going to talk out of what?”

Nozawa spun to find Hirugami smiling pleasantly down at him, his hands in his pockets. The smile did not reach his eyes though, which seemed unreadable, and colder than Nozawa had ever seen him.

He gulped but did not back down. He had to make Hirugami see reason; there was no way this ‘mission’ of theirs would end well. “Hirugami.”

“Nozawa-san, I know what you’re going to say.” The hard lines around his eyes creased ever so slightly, although Hirugami did not drop the smile. He sighed. “This is more than just bringing Hoshiumi back. I know he seemed far from lucid when we… banished… him, but he saw something. It must’ve been why they targeted him. He could be our way out.”

“It’s been three days,” Nozawa countered immediately. “Do you have any idea how big the maze is? He could be anywhere. What if you don’t find him?”

“Then we come back,” Hirugami said simply.

“Bullshit.”

“No, I promise. Me and Gao, we’ll turn around and head right home around 4, wherever we are. We’ll be back before the doors close. It’ll be no different than what we normally do.”

Nozawa narrowed his eyes, but Hirugami merely stared back at him impassively. A swift glance at Suwa for support saw Suwa ducking his head. Gods, Nozawa hated this. Hirugami’s reasonings were always sound, and Nozawa hadn’t known him to be a boy swayed by emotions before. But he also knew there was more to Hirugami and Hoshiumi’s relationship than met the eye. For coming up to the glade one month apart, the two of them were extraordinarily close. Suwa used to joke that maybe that closeness had been a remnant of the people they had been, before whoever was in charge of this death trap had erased all their memories and sent them all here, one by one, to die.

Which meant that no matter what pretty words Hirugami used to cover his true intentions up, Nozawa saw right through it. He also knew that Hirugami had already made up his mind. Even if Nozawa tried, he and Suwa wouldn’t be able to stop him forever, and they’d only be making enemies among themselves, which was something they really couldn’t afford.

He didn’t want to do this.

Nozawa fixed Hirugami with a hard stare. “By the time the doors close, you said.” For the past few days, Suwa had made sure Hirugami and Gao had come back well before that. This was a risk, and they all knew it.

“On my word,” Hirugami promised.

Suwa stood up as well, brushing stray bits of grass off his pants as he did. “Hirugami, you and Gao are going to get past those doors not a minute after 5. You understand?”

Hirugami bowed. “We will. Thank you, Suwa-san, Nozawa-san.”

As Hirugami jogged off, Nozawa turned to Suwa with a frown. He opened his mouth, but words failed him for a moment.

Suwa just stared at him steadily, until Nozawa noted in defeat, “It’s amazing that he still does that. We don’t even know our real names, let alone how old we are.”

“A fragment of a memory,” Suwa agreed, before they lapsed into silence.

He hated this. But what else could he do?

—

Eventually, Suwa decided to call it a night. Even as Nozawa tossed and turned in his hammock though, he could not let Hirugami’s words, or Suwa’s expression go. There was something niggling at the corners of his mind, and Nozawa hadn’t survived this long not to trust his instincts. Something was wrong. He just had to figure out what.

It was only some time after midnight that it hit him. Suwa’s words. Or rather, what he had left unsaid. _I think we might’ve made a mistake._

Suwa had to be planning to go with them, he realised. There was no other explanation. It was all in the eyes – more than an observation, the words had almost sounded like an apology. Suwa had been apologetic — to him. For having to leave him behind.

Nozawa sat up. There was no way that he was going to let that idiot sacrifice his own sorry hide if he could help it. He would not let him, not now, not ever.

Suwa might have been the first boy sent up into the glade, but Nozawa had been the second. He knew Suwa better. Suwa had spent one whole month with his demons, in this hell on earth, alone. If he thought that made him more expendable, he had another thing coming.

It wasn’t as though Nozawa was going to get an inch of sleep tonight, and so he jumped lightly down from his hammock. Mind made up, he grabbed a small backpack, emptying it of its contents as quietly as he could and then making his way to their makeshift kitchen. Kanbayashi had done a great job, he thought, with a roof that was sturdy enough to keep out wind and rain. Nozawa whipped out a pen and some paper he always carried with him to write a short note for him to find in the morning. In case he and the others didn’t make it back, he knew that Kanbayashi would take good care of the greenies, Bessho and Liam. Nozawa couldn’t have asked for a better friend and fellow glader. He only hoped Kanbayashi would forgive them.

In his backpack he stuffed some bananas and mikan fruit, along with snacks Kanbayashi had probably prepared for today’s lunch. He also grabbed two water bottles from the makeshift counter.

Next, he moved onto the shack, careful to keep his steps as light as possible. Opening the door with a light shove, he found himself exhaling an abrupt breath as the air left his body.

He hadn’t been here since Hoshiumi left. It was the same reason why he hadn’t protested as hard as he felt he should’ve with Hirugami. This was the runners’ hut. Every day, without fail, Hirugami and Hoshiumi had run deep into the maze, trying to map it out. Each time they went, they were carrying the hopes of the other boys with them, Nozawa’s included, that they would one day find a way to escape.

The loss of Hoshiumi didn’t hurt only Hirugami. As Nozawa traced the lines on the map, the tiny circle in the centre that depicted the glade where they were all trapped, he lifted a hand to brush a few ungainly tears roughly away. There was no time for them. He could cry when they got out, or when someone rescued them. But not now.

Hoshiumi and Hirugami had been running together for two months, and it showed. The paths they’d drawn inching out in spider-webbed lines from the maze door were more extensive than had been impressed upon Nozawa, although curiously it seemed like the lines were often erased to make way for a new path. Sometimes there were multiple erasures, with paths diverging completely from where they had been before.

It made Nozawa uneasy. He knew the two of them were absurdly precise, and they weren’t prone to lose their way. They always had two maps, one that stayed in this hut and another they carried with them so that they could return to the glade before sundown. They wouldn’t make so many mistakes, would they?

Nozawa found that unlikely. But if that was the case, there arose another terrifying possibility: was the maze… somehow… rearranging itself?

It couldn’t be. Nozawa would’ve known it by now if it was.

Whatever the case, it just made Nozawa more certain. If, _if_ the maze was even more dangerous than Hoshiumi and Hirugami had made it seem, then he would have to be there, for Suwa’s sake if no one else.

He moved to the back of the shack, where Hirugami and Hoshiumi kept their supplies. An extra shirt and a pair of shorts all went into Nozawa’s backpack. The knife he kept in his back pocket though. Just in case.

He felt strangely giddy, unable to sit down for more than a few minutes. His thoughts swirled and swirled around one another as he tried not to think too hard about how he might just be walking to his doom. That it would be better to abandon this stupid venture, keep to the glade where he knew, at least, nothing had happened yet.

He had to keep himself together. Knowing Hirugami, he would run into the maze as soon as the doors opened around 6 in the morning. That meant, Nozawa tapped his watch in frustration, that there were only about two hours left.

Whoever had sent them up here had been selective about what supplies they chose to give. One of those things had been watches; every kid sent up to the glade had, without fail, a watch strapped to their right wrist. Back when it was just Suwa and Nozawa alone, the two of them used to theorise on its significance. Was there a sense of something they were supposed to anticipate, some big event they had no way of knowing was coming? That thought slowly made its way to the back of their minds as month after month passed, and it became clear that whoever was doing this to them, wasn’t stopping anytime soon. Every month, a boy came up like clockwork, and with him fruits, wood, paper, preserved meat in bags. Last month, Liam had been sent up along with five live chickens. They were meant to stay here for a while.

Still, if what had happened to Hoshiumi was any indication, it wasn’t meant to be forever. Something out there had tried to kill Hoshiumi, and he and the other gladers had only sealed his fate by sending him back.

Maybe Suwa was right, and they had made a mistake.

Nozawa grit his teeth. It was too late for regrets now. If Hoshiumi was still out there, if he had somehow survived three nights even with whatever creature was out there hunting him, then Nozawa and the others would bring him back. They would bring him back at any cost.

Before Nozawa headed to the doors, he stopped by one last location: a wall right behind the hammocks.

It had been Suwa’s idea. Even if no one else might remember them, even if they might never be able to remember themselves, this, here, was proof that at some point in time they had existed. They had been here.

Nozawa traced each name on the wall with his eyes, ignoring the little tremours that ran up and down his arms, his legs. There were eight names now, all gauged into the wall. _Suwa, Nozawa, Kanbayashi, Gao, Hirugami, Hoshiumi, Bessho, Liam_. Hoshiumi’s name had been crossed out with a simple line; Hirugami had done it himself two nights before, his expression giving nothing away as he did. Nozawa had forced himself not to look away then.

 _Hoshiumi, if you’re alive, we’ll find you,_ he vowed.

He stayed by the wall for what felt like hours, head bowed in a prayer. To someone, anyone, whatever deity was out there, if there was, to just watch over them somehow. Mostly, he was thinking about himself. If his family was still out there, had they ever cared what happened to him?

The very first rays of sun were already beginning to peek through the trees, warming his neck.

Nozawa stood up.

It was time.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually love Hoshiumi a lot haha. Anyway, if you read to the end of this fic, thank you! And if you enjoyed it, please leave a kudos, or a comment if there was something that struck you! Have a good one! <3


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